


18°24′23″ N, 66°3′50″ W

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson-centric, Daisy Is The Only Marvel Superhero, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, basically nothing happens here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson is trying to find Daisy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	18°24′23″ N, 66°3′50″ W

**Author's Note:**

> So this probably isn't very deep, but I needed to write a little something about this.  
> This is going to be the best hiatus of my life, though. ♥

They’ve been looking for Daisy for months now (he knows the exact amount of days, but it’s not like it’s any use keeping the others updated on the count). She was around for all the remodeling work, for all the pain, for all the reverberations, because Daisy is the most loyal person he knows. But he still remembers the small note she left him as soon as the base was done clearly, far too clearly.

“COULSON,  
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU.  
I NEED TO BE SOMEWHERE ELSE. SOMEONE ELSE.  
YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG, NONE OF YOU. THAT WAS ME. I’M NEVER GOING TO BE FAR AWAY, BUT I’M NOT COMING BACK. I NEED TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT.  
I REALLY HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.  
DAISY”

He knows he shouldn’t be looking for her, she wouldn’t want it. But with the papers documenting “Quake” every day now, he doubts the government would even let him talk to her in case they got to her first. The truth is, pretty much all the agencies are looking for her right now. And he can’t say he blames them. Superheroes aren’t really the most desired group of people at the moment, especially not since Hive, because to the public, everyone with any kind of powers looks like a threat now. At least, that’s what the media keep disseminating. Inhumans, enhanced individuals, aliens, Asgardians, vigilantes: in the government’s eyes, they are all one and the same.

Nonetheless, he keeps trying to catch his breath, keeps catching glimpses of her, reading about her in the newspaper, cleaning up after her (in terms of bureaucratic handling, mostly), covering her tracks (if she would leave any, that is). And he keeps finding himself to be one step behind.

He knows he isn’t strictly following protocols anymore. Sure, he’s given up the post of Director, it makes things easier when you aren’t exactly responsible for the amount of rules your team is breaking anymore. To be fair, though, May is the toughest superior Coulson’s ever had (also the most versatile).

If it weren’t for Mack, he wouldn’t even be eating. He tells himself it’s a waste of time, that he’d be losing valuable minutes of gathering intel on Daisy if he ate, but he knows he’s weakening himself, so he’s trying not to be grumpy when his partner offers him sandwiches. 

It’s driving him crazy to always be late to the scene, to only know where Daisy _has been_ , not where she’s going. She doesn’t need him; after all, she’s always managed to escape the whole of this country’s secret agents. Sure, it helps that he knows Daisy better than most other people, but still, the only thing he gets to see (even if he’s the first person to get there) is the dust settling after her.

After a few months of following her across the continent, he notices small things in his motel rooms, tiny things, that change. At first, he thinks it’s just his lack of sleep (especially since Mack doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about): his clothes, his books changing places, sometimes, ties disappear, or sometimes, there are small things in the room that weren’t there before – pencils, paperclips, sunglasses, napkins. 

It takes him a while to lose the paranoia. He’s a spy, after all, it’s basically his job to be cautious and vigilant and also a little paranoid, because anything can happen anytime and everything has consequences (at least, that’s what he’s been told back at the Academy). But after, what, two weeks, maybe, it occurs to him that this might be real -  
and that it might be Daisy.

He tries to talk about it with Mack, but his partner doesn’t think it’s too probable that Daisy should be coming to them, because even if she would, she’d probably show herself, not creep into Coulson’s room at night and misplace things, move little objects, and not want to talk to either of them.

One particularly tough evening (he’s seen Daisy from afar again that day, and she looks both so strong and so different that it makes him want to cry), he decides to write a small note, leaves it on his messy table.

“DAISY,  
THERE’S HALF A PIZZA IN THE FRIDGE. IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T HAD DINNER.  
PHIL”

He knows he’s being childish, writing this, not to mention how he’s been trying to stay awake at night, like a small boy waiting for Santa Claus to arrive, wanting to see her, or at least hear her creep in and out.

When he wakes up in the morning, runs to the table to see if she left a reply to his note, he is a little disappointed to see that there’s only his message on the paper. He looks around to check, but she doesn’t seem to have changed anything in the room. She probably wasn’t even here.

It’s not until lunch that he opens his fridge (he’s basically living on black coffee these days). The pizza carton is gone, and he can’t remember anything else that has made him smile like an idiot lately.

Then, they lose track of Daisy, and the media goes quiet. After a month or so, there is a very short article under the headline _Where Is Quake?_ , but nothing else. Coulson briefly visits the Hintons, but all Mrs Hinton can tell him is that Daisy said she was going away for a little while, but that she would be back before the end of summer.

At first, this devastates him. It’s been almost a year of following her, of trying to get to her before anyone else. After a conference that’s related to a case of domestic terrorism, Talbot tells him they’ve stopped looking for her, and that he’s pretty sure that also goes for the other agencies, since there haven’t been any reports mentioning Quake lately. Coulson’s relieved, but to be honest, it also saddens him to know that basically, he has no way of finding Daisy if she doesn’t want to be found. 

May makes it clear to him that there’s plenty of actually very urgent work to be done, so Coulson travels to Cleveland to take care of a mission gone south. Mack doesn’t bring it up, but he knows he’s working differently now; he’s acting tougher on the outside, but listens to Mack’s suggestions much more often than he used to. On the whole, though, these few weeks in Ohio seem to relax him, probably because he knows now that there’s nobody out there hunting Daisy right now, that she isn’t forced to run all the time. One evening there, Mack smiles at him, and it makes Coulson realize he’s spent the past few months with a permanent frown on his forehead.

Their next mission’s in Florida, and Coulson can’t deny he’d love to be spending some time on a beach, doing nothing, thinking nothing, covering his face with a straw hat and his feet with sand. On their first morning in the hotel, though, there’s a knock on Coulson’s door, it’s the landlady with an envelope for him, and he suspects May is calling him back to HQ, but the address is hand-written. His heart jumps to his throat, because he knows these loops and dashes. He opens the envelope like he’s afraid he could hurt it.

Inside, there’s a concert ticket. It’s for the day after tomorrow, June 10th, and it makes him laugh, because it’s basically screaming Daisy:

“CONCIERTO 4: AL CINE! – STAR WARS  
MÚSICA DE STAR WARS, INCLUYENDO DE LA ÚLTIMA PELÍCULA EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS  
SALA SINFÓNICA PABLO CASALS  
CENTRO DE BELLAS ARTES LUÍS A. FERRÉ, SAN JUAN  
ORQUESTA SINFÓNICA DE PUERTO RICO  
DIRECTOR: RAFAEL ENRIQUE IRIZARRY”

Sticking to it, there’s a small yellow post-it note, saying:

“AVE. PONCE DE LEÓN 22 1/2  
NO NEED TO BRING A TIE :-)”.

He rushes to wildly throw things into his suitcase, the smile on his face wide.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! :) Tell me what you think!
> 
> The coordinates are for San Juan, Puerto Rico. ;)  
> I might be continuing this, but I don't know yet.


End file.
